Re: Yahoo UK - still problems

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In Reply to: Re: Yahoo UK - still problems posted by Michael Burgess on October 07, 2000 at 18:10:36:

: : : : : Mark

: : : : : Firstly, thanks for the updated retrieve module. Unfortunately, there still seem to be problem with some shares on Yahoo UK. Having updated all the symbols to include the suffix ".L" there are still a number of shares that won't update. Examples are Border TV - BTV.L, Domino Printing - DNO.L, Haynes Publishing - HYNS.L, and Hunting - HTG.L etc.

: : : : : As Yahoo seem to be congenitally unable to resist changing their suffixes every few months I wonder whether it would be possible to amend Fund Manager to make alterations slightly easier. As you can imagine it is extremely tedious to have to go through 200 - 300 symbols updating the suffix to suit Yahoo's latest whim only to find they are then incompatible with other sources of data such as Market Eye.

: : : : : One solution that would make things a lot easier would be an option on, say, the Internet Settings dialog to set a global suffix to be used at any given time. To be really useful it would need to work with both the Quote Servers such as Yahoo and any imported data.

: : : : : In the meantime I would be grateful if you could have another look at the current module to see if there is any reason why the above shares are unwilling to update.

: : : : : Many thanks

: : : : : Michael

: : : : : Email address omitted to avoid spam.

: : : : Hi Michael,
: : : : Thanks for the feedback. I agree and understand about having some option
: : : : to globally affect the suffix of your symbol. I did take a look at the
: : : : first two of your sample symbols that weren't updating for you. They both
: : : : updated when I just tried. The BTV.L updated for the 9/14 date, as that
: : : : is the date being reported by Yahoo-UK. The DNO.L updated correctly though
: : : : with the price for 10/4. Are you still having problems with these? Can you
: : : : double check that you don't have a space or something else recorded in the
: : : : symbol.

: : : : Thanks,
: : : : Mark
: : : : --

: : :
: : : Mark

: : : Many thanks for the response and the explanation.

: : : I have to admit that I hadn’t appreciated that the shares were being updated but with date the share last traded rather than the current date. I presume that this is a consequence of the revised layout used by Yahoo.

: : : As a result if a share last traded on, say, 4 October then no price would be picked up on the 5 October for that share. What in fact would happen is that the price for 4 October would be imported again but with zero volumes overwriting the previously recorded figures.

: : : Although I am not sure there is necessarily a right and wrong way of recording the data this does seem to be a departure from the way it was previously handled by FM and is certainly different from the way other providers such as Market Eye present their data. In the case of Market Eye the closing price on 4 October (in the above example) would be used again as the closing price for 5 October but with zero volumes. The price and volume data for the 4 October would be left unchanged.

: : : Assuming my assessment is right I wondered if there was any way of reverting to the previous system, which I believe, would be less confusing.

: : : Other than that I have to say the update process is much quicker.

: : : Many thanks

: : : Michael

: : Hi Michael,
: : In general if a server provides a date for a quote, FM will use that.
: : Some servers provide dates with the quotes, and some don't. Yahoo-UK does
: : provide the date with the quote, so it seems best to update the price for
: : the specified date. If for example you retrieve prices before the opening
: : of the market on 10/5, then the prices would be updated for the date specified
: : by the server, 10/4. This would be the benefit of using the server provided
: : date. In the case of quote servers that don't provide a date with the quote,
: : we use the "default" date, which you can control, although through a registry
: : entry. By default, the default date is the current date. It would be a
: : pretty easy option to add the ability to use the default date for any quote
: : server, rather than the date specified by the server. This is something
: : we can consider for 5.0.

: : I guess the case in question is when the stock doesn't trade
: : every day. In this case it still seems valid to only update the price for
: : the last trade date?? If it hasn't traded in a few days, is its price today
: : really the same as it was a few days ago?

: : Thanks,
: : Mark
: : --

: Mark

: I don't disagree with what you say. I am not sure there is a single perfect solution - it is just that what is happening now is different from what was happening before Yahoo's update. It is also not ideal that the volume figures are overwritten by zero whenever there is a day without a trade. I think the ability to enter a global date would be a useful enhancement along with the ability to set a global symbol suffix.

: Do you have any contact with Yahoo UK or know why they keep changing the setup? They must have changed the symbol for the FT 100 index half a doazen times in the past couple of years.

: Thanks again

: Michael

Hi Michael,
No, I don't have any contact with Yahoo UK. We are using their new
download into csv format, so I would hope this minimizes the number of times
a new retrieve module will be needed to keep updating from this source.

Thanks,
Mark
--
Mark Beiley

Fund Manager for Windows 3.1x/95/98/NT

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